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Spiritual Synergy: The Impact of Gospel Partnership

KAREN HODGE | CONTRIBUTOR Synergy is not a word that often rolls off the tongue, but when you look around, you will begin to see it everywhere. Synergy finds its roots in the word for sun and energy and working together. It is where impact and multiplication collide. It is the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. On most days, one plus one always equals two. But synergy and collaboration offer the prospects of one plus one equaling three, ten, or one thousand. Don't believe me? Look around at God's creative acts. Bees exponentially pollinate, thus helping to oxygenate our world. Singular ingredients that may taste simple or bland when combined in a recipe delight the palate. Solos are nice, but how magnificent to sit in a sanctuary filled with an orchestra and the four-part harmony of a choir. It's the better together quotient! I write a strategic plan for our National Women’s Ministry Team each year. In 2025, we are inviting women to join us in stepping out in faith and asking God to enable the rich interdependence of spiritual synergy. Gospel Partnership Brings Joy, Thanksgiving, and Missional Alignment We don't read anywhere that Paul had favorite churches, but if he did, I am guessing that the church at Philippi would've been at the top of the list. This church was not perfect, but they were delighted to be partners. Paul expressed his joy in serving alongside them when he wrote, "I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:3-6). This shared mission compelled him towards worship and thanksgiving. Planting the church at Philippi was no casual once-in-a-blue-moon connection. It started the day they met, and because of the gospel's power, it persevered daily. He knew that unpacking the content of the gospel in the context of community was eternally shaping him and his fellow brothers and sisters. Growing and serving together as a Body was not a one-and-done partnership but a process of gospel transformation that would find its finish on the day of Christ Jesus...

Spiritual Synergy: The Impact of Gospel Partnership2025-01-02T20:10:18+00:00

Loving Single Women in the Church

AMY SANTARELLI |GUEST “I sit at the back of the church and look around at all the families and everyone looks like they are happy and have a great life. Church is a very hard place to be.” I have heard such words more than once from my friends who are single again, whether through death or divorce. Other single women have similar thoughts. These dear women of all ages often struggle with loneliness, financial challenges, feeling overwhelmed, and connecting with others. God’s care for the vulnerable is found all through Scripture. Deuteronomy 24:17-22 describes God’s provision for the immigrant, orphan, and widow. Psalm 68:8 declares God as Father to the fatherless and protector of widows.  In James we see true religion described as caring for the vulnerable among us. How can we reflect God’s provision and care for the single women in our fellowship? How can we help them feel loved and seen? 1. Anticipating needs.  There are often tasks involved with caring for a home that for one reason or another are difficult for a single woman to tackle on her own. This is true of car maintenance as well. When you are working on home or car maintenance tasks for your family, consider checking in with the single women of your church to help them as well...

Loving Single Women in the Church2024-12-19T18:13:55+00:00

Five Things I Learned From My Husband’s Life-Threatening Illness

LEAH FARISH|GUEST “Inoperable.” “Stage 4.”  “Radiation won’t help.” “Aggressive cancer.” These are things I was told about my husband Kent’s sudden, alarming condition two months ago. But I was also told important things from the Word of God. Since those are the things that apply to everyone, those are what I want to tell you. When we thought he had mere weeks to live, we sat together in awe as he sipped bone broth, the only thing he could stomach. He had started chemotherapy the very day he first saw an oncologist, who admitted him straight to the hospital. We murmured in disbelief to see my husband, a physician himself and a dynamo of energy, quickly declining to a wraith who couldn’t walk across the street. I started asking him his passwords, and hired a yard man. Calls and texts started to pour in to my phone with questions and offers of help. One thing we resolved to do was not to criticize or minimize any attempt to comfort or assist us.  I learned not to second-guess messages or gestures of concern, no matter how brilliant or clumsy. We agreed we would take everything that people brought to our situation, no matter how big or small, as straight from God’s hand. We had no desire to use what we thought were Kent’s last days in critiquing ways that others tried to express their love. Love doesn’t keep count of wrongs suffered, so if we had had expectations of what someone should do for us, we gladly dropped them. Since when one member of the Body hurts, we all hurt, maybe wisdom from the pain might come to us through another who was not technically suffering. Kent even started habitually opening his hands upward whenever someone would proffer a prayer or encouraging word. Soon we felt the surrounding cloud of loving support sent by the Body of Christ...

Five Things I Learned From My Husband’s Life-Threatening Illness2024-07-04T15:43:41+00:00

The Body of Christ Makes All the Difference

SHARON ROCKWELL | CONTRIBUTOR My friend was not handling life very well. Emotions overwhelmed her as she felt the disappointment and pain of an adult child who was making bad choices, grief for a parent in hospice, and the sting of anger when relatives inappropriately demanded a share of the inheritance. She was already battling cancer, exhausted from chemotherapy and frustrated that she could not deal with all that was on her plate. Darkness invaded her world more than was visible to the eye. She had Christian friends at church who were praying for her. She had good-intentioned family members always ready with words of advice. And she had plenty of books and podcast lectures on dealing with her specific issues. But it was a wise, older Christian woman who encouraged her and imparted truth without judgement that changed everything. This woman met with my friend twice a week for months. She told me the main premise of their discussions was that the only thing you can control is yourself. My friend kept a diary of their Bible searches for God’s truth about her life versus her own self-deception. Here are a few of the key take-aways that she recounted put her back on a healthy path. She learned to guard her heart. Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Guarding your heart means choosing godly thoughts (Col. 3:2; Phil. 4:8) as well as seeking wisdom and guidance from God. My friend had spent months in anger, self-pity, and dwelling on how life is unfair. She had raised her children with Christian values, only to watch a prodigal flaunt an ungodly lifestyle in her face. Why? She had always taken care of her body—good food and exercise—only to face a cancer diagnosis. Why? Betrayal had fractured her family over money issues. Why? It was a while before my friend would admit that her heart was bitter. Only she could control her thoughts, choosing godly thoughts over the evil that plagued her to the point of giving up on life. But once this realization became clear, it was a turning point...

The Body of Christ Makes All the Difference2024-03-19T13:29:44+00:00

Gray Hair is a Crown of Glory

KIM BARNES | CONTRIBUTOR Recently, I got an email from a friend. She had heard through the grapevine that my husband had been briefly hospitalized. (He’s fine.) She wanted to let me know she was praying for us. I’ve known Doras for around 17 years and during those years, she has often sent emails letting me know that she’s praying for me, and I know that she reaches out to many this way. I don’t get to see Doras as often as I used to, but I did get to see her recently for a special occasion—her 100th birthday party! You read that correctly. I have a 100-year-old friend who prays for me and who communicates by email. I met Doras when my husband was called to be the pastor of her church. She was 83 years old and had been a widow for several years. Doras was quick to make sure she had my email address. I learned that while the church was without a pastor, 83-year-old Doras decided it would be a good idea to start an informal email newsletter to encourage the congregation and help everyone stay connected. On a regular basis, she would send emails that announced church events, shared prayer requests, and offered encouragement to gather for worship. She forwarded prayer letters sent out by our missionaries and if a member of our church wanted to get the word out about anything, they needed only to send an email to Doras. For the next twelve years, while my husband served as pastor of Doras’s church, I could count on regular emails that encouraged, informed, and blessed me...

Gray Hair is a Crown of Glory2024-02-10T19:34:15+00:00

Coming Alongside Women in the Church

CHRISTINA FOX | EDITOR I sit around the table surrounded by women from various seasons of life. One by one, we share our prayer requests for the week. Requests for healing from painful diseases. Requests for restoration of broken relationships. Requests for endurance in troubles and trials. Requests for comfort in grief and sorrow. As we share our cares and concerns with one another, we feel each other’s sorrows and fears. Our hearts hurt for each other. That’s because we are united to the Body of Christ. So, we pray with and for one another. We rejoice when prayers are answered. We encourage one another in our sorrows. We bear one another’s cares. The church is filled with hurting people. We all bear the burdens and scars of living in a fallen world where the tentacles of sin stretch far and wide. We experience the consequences of our first parent’s sin before we are even born. We enter this world in sin and live our lives in rebellion against our Creator until we are rescued and saved by the blood of Christ. We sin against others and others sin against us. Some wounds we receive at the hands of others burrow deep in our hearts and linger long. There’s also the impact of sin on our bodies as they fail to work as they should—as disease and decay leave their mark until death makes its final call. Sin’s tentacles also impact our created world where natural disasters spin out tragedy and destruction on the regular. In all these ways and more, we feel the weight of our brokenness. Tim Keller once described the church as “a hospital for sinners (where triage happens) not a museum for saints.” If this is true, how are we as the church doing such triage? How are we helping one another in our sufferings? Are we honest about our common struggles with living in a fallen world? And, as redeemed saints who share in the sufferings of Christ and have the same Spirit living within us, shouldn’t we encourage one another in the gospel and in its power to deliver, restore, and redeem?...

Coming Alongside Women in the Church2024-02-04T20:15:16+00:00

Working Together Across Gender in the Church

HOLLY MACKLE|CONTRIBUTOR When my pastor, Bob Flayhart, asked me to help adapt his life sermon into a book, my immediate wash of excitement quickly turned to a flood of fear. In my experience, it’s hard not to dignify any relational conflicts that arise in inter-gender work with a weight they should never carry. This feels especially constraining in the body of Christ, where an often unspoken sense of higher stakes in working together betrays an underlying level of disunity in the church. As such, I imagined all the ways working alongside Bob could go terribly wrong—all the scenarios in which I could disappoint, frustrate, or annoy him. I spoke my hesitation to a friend who wisely didn’t quash it, but rather turned the tables to the what if. “What if one or all of those things do happen?” she pressed. “I don’t knoooow,” I whined. “What would I do?” Instead of looking at me like I had three eyeballs, in a level, somehow non-judgmental tone she replied with the answer whose obviousness still stuns me to this day: “You waltz.” Oh right. Got it. It seemed my wash of fear would be a good place to employ the very framework Bob asked me to help adapt from sermon into book form, which he termed the Gospel Waltz. It also happens to be the precise skill to which I am witness number one as to its transformative power. Yet how quickly I forget. I am a writer who works largely in collaborative contexts, sometimes alongside the men of our church, which means this is hardly the first time this fear has flared. And I know I’m not alone, as so many women in the church labor alongside men in ministry and service contexts. The questions of what to do if I disappoint him or annoy him aren’t unique to me, and the truth is they barely scratch the surface of the deep-seated fear. It strikes me that the real question as we seek to work together across gender is: how do we do this well? How do we honor the Lord in our projects, planning, and partnership both within the church and out into the larger world?...

Working Together Across Gender in the Church2023-11-15T22:00:50+00:00

Forgiveness: A Costly Yet Worthy Obedience

ELLEN DYKAS|CONTRIBUTOR Corrie ten Boom, imprisoned during WWII for sheltering Jews in her home (along with her family), told a powerful story from a speaking event in Berlin. After sharing about God’s love, a man approached her. Oh, Miss Ten Boom, I’m so glad to see you…don’t you recognize me? She realized he was one of the cruelest guards in the concentration camp where she had been imprisoned with her sister, Betsy. He enthusiastically told her he was now a Christian, marveling at God’s forgiveness for all the cruelties he inflicted on people. But, he said, he prayed that God would give him an opportunity to ask one of his victims for forgiveness. Miss Ten Boom, will you forgive me? Corrie said, “I could not. I remembered the suffering of my dying sister through him...and I realized that if I did not forgive those who sin against me, my heavenly Father would not forgive me…but I could not [forgive him], but could only hate him.”[1] Confronting our inner hate and desperation I’ve not suffered the kind of trauma which Corrie endured, but I have been sinned against, and have confronted hatred in my heart towards evil doers, as well as believers who’ve betrayed me and mishandled my heart. What about you, sister? Today, are you weighed down with lingering pain and anger due to someone’s sin against you? A leader, friend, husband, parent, son, daughter, or boss? Do you resonate with Corrie’s desperate honesty, I can’t forgive, I can only hate?...

Forgiveness: A Costly Yet Worthy Obedience2023-08-15T13:17:27+00:00

We Always Have A Father to Celebrate on Father’s Day

SHEA PATRICK|CONTRIBUTOR As I work on this blog post, Mother’s Day just past. I saw many things on social media celebrating mothers, but also saw the mixed feelings the holiday brings about. I imagine many people have a similar feeling about Father’s Day. A group of my friends and I no longer have fathers here on earth and we often discuss how difficult the day is for us. What do we do with these mixed feelings? Get angry at those who are celebrating? Blast our frustration with God’s plan for us on social media? In contrast, the death of my father is one of those milestone moments in my walk with God— an Ebeneezer reminder of how God cared for me when my dad died. A Hard Grief I still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the phone call came. My dad was dead at sixty.  He had just retired eight months before and moved into his dream house with my mom. I just could not believe that it was true. I was in shock. I think the entire first year I lived in disbelief. All the firsts came and went – Father’s Day and his birthday. I also had a one-year-old who turned two six months later—another first where I felt the absence of my dad profoundly. The second year was the hardest for me by far. I think it took the first year for me to really understand the reality of my loss, for my dad’s death to sink in. I often woke in the middle of the night from terrible dreams, only to realize the loss of my dad wasn’t a nightmare; it was all too real. I spent those nights crying out to the Lord in desperate prayer. Every time I was at my parents’ house, I expected him to come around the corner. It was painfully hard to adjust to life without him here. But it was during this period that I really began to understand God as my Father as he showed his fatherly care for me...

We Always Have A Father to Celebrate on Father’s Day2023-08-15T13:22:39+00:00

How I Grew to Love the PCA

JAMYE DOERFLER|GUEST I grew up in non-denominational, charismatic-leaning churches. Then, at 22, I married a PCA guy—one who intended to become a pastor, no less. In the beginning, it was difficult for me to fully embrace the denomination, but twenty-five years later, I can see how God has worked in my heart to bring me to a place where I recently helped my husband plant a PCA church. You may be wondering how a nice Reformed guy could end up with a girl like me in the first place. Peter and I met at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, which was once associated with the PCUSA but now has students of every Christian stripe. When we started dating in senior year, we had no intention of marrying. After all, he wanted to be a pastor, and I wasn’t interested in being a pastor’s wife (but that's a story for another time). Our doctrinal differences weren't as important as the fact that we were both committed Christians. We were out of college and living in different states when we decided to marry, so it wasn’t until then that the rubber hit the road. Like all newlyweds, Peter and I had to make decisions about whose way we would do things. Wash the dishes with a rag or sponge? Open gifts on Christmas Eve or morning? When it came to choosing a church, we had to reconcile differences both of theology and preference. Only there wasn’t much of a debate here—our choices were limited because he needed to be under the care of a Presbytery. What even was a presbytery?!...

How I Grew to Love the PCA2023-08-15T13:23:11+00:00
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